The Jam, reformed and on Tour

[unleasHell]

Touring the USA soon is a band called FROM THE JAM which features two-thirds of the original Jam (sans Paul Weller) and plus two other guys. They are playing the old Jam hits and sound just like they did so many years ago.

Here is their mySpace site: http://www.myspace.com/thegiftwoking

check it out if you are in a Modern mood...

Also Touring with them is the long time voice and original member of the Stranglers: Hugh Cornwell

sound be a cool double bill, they hit the Disneyland House of Blues in January (2008), which is where I plan to see them...check you local listings...and your mileage may vary...

[BarryL]

I was never a Jam fan, but I remember loving the song "town called malice".

[Ex Lion Tamer]

Touring the USA soon is a band called FROM THE JAM which features two-thirds of the original Jam (sans Paul Weller) and plus two other guys. They are playing the old Jam hits and sound just like they did so many years ago.

Here is their mySpace site: http://www.myspace.com/thegiftwoking

check it out if you are in a Modern mood...

Also Touring with them is the long time voice and original member of the Stranglers: Hugh Cornwell

sound be a cool double bill, they hit the Disneyland House of Blues in January (2008), which is where I plan to see them...check you local listings...and your mileage may vary...

What's the point, without Weller, not to mention being 25 years too late.

[nobody]

The point is, even a total Jam cover band would be a fun night out. Grab a few beers and hear Jam songs live, just for fun.

They ain't coming to my town, but if they were, I'd go. I'm not about to travel hours though. Still, it'll probably not be too expensive and I can think of lots worse ways to spend the evening than hearing half the Jam tear through their greatest hits.

[Rae]

nobody, let's just start our own Jam cover band. We can meet in Wisconsin. I have been known to do a pretty mean "Absolute Beginners" at karaoke.

~Rae

[Ex Lion Tamer]

nobody, let's just start our own Jam cover band. We can meet in Wisconsin. I have been known to do a pretty mean "Absolute Beginners" at karaoke.

~Rae

Now that, I'd go to see.

[BradH]

What's the point, without Weller...

Maybe, but I've never understood the point of Weller without Foxton and Buckler.

[MindGoneHaywire]

The point of Weller without Foxton & Buckler was some of his work in the first couple of years after he broke the Jam up, the first Style Council record & some of the 12" singles, a track or two off the following records. But nothing addresses the point of Weller without the other two more than this song, to my ears:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uAdal53PKmk

Anyway, I'm going to see "From the Jam" on Sat nite...I haven't seen a show in ages, maybe three years since I saw Madeleine Peyroux? Can't recall anything since then off the top of my head. The Pogues are playing a few dates coming up, but they'll never match what they did in 1986 when I saw them three or four times. Bob Mould in a few weeks was tempting, but at least I'd seen Husker Du & Sugar in their day. This was something I never thought I'd see, even without Weller, and it's not like there are Jam tribute bands (at least not to my knowledge) on this side of the pond. When I saw the Undertones a few years ago it was almost akin to having the original band with a tribute band singer, and they absolutely killed, so I'm pretty psyched.

[BradH]

But nothing addresses the point of Weller without the other two more than this song, to my ears...

I think that first Style Council album was a waste of money, still do. I think they're all a waste of money. I don't need to be told by Weller that cafe jazz and American soul exists. I didn't mind the direction he was going so much as his inability to pull it off in any convincing manner. (And yeah, that includes "The Paris Match.")

I think The Jam had another album in them. I didn't believe it after hearing The Gift but the singles and ep's that followed were great with songs like "Beat Surrender" and "Stoned Out Of My Mind". It was a new direction for The Jam and, in retrospect, you can see where Weller was heading with a smoother, cooler sound. It's the old saw about the artiste being restriced by his band. Fine, I get it. But if you're going to break up something as good as The Jam you should have something better to show for it than some post-new wave Floyd Cramer knockoff.

Just sayin'.

Btw, Foxton and Buckler with Cornwell has an @ssload of cred in my eyes. I was a huge Stranglers fan.

[MindGoneHaywire]

>I think The Jam had another album in them. I didn't believe it after hearing The Gift but the singles and ep's that followed were great with songs like "Beat Surrender" and "Stoned Out Of My Mind". It was a new direction for The Jam and, in retrospect, you can see where Weller was heading with a smoother, cooler sound. It's the old saw about the artiste being restriced by his band. Fine, I get it. But if you're going to break up something as good as The Jam you should have something better to show for it than some post-new wave Floyd Cramer knockoff.

I don't disagree. However, there is the Style Council to consider, as they exist, and I don't see what good ignoring them does. The singles & 1st album are spotty, but I do think the best moments on Cafe Bleu are worthy, none more so than the Paris-Match, no matter how it reflected on what Weller could've been doing instead.

>I didn't mind the direction he was going so much as his inability to pull it off in any convincing manner. (And yeah, that includes "The Paris Match.")

Disagree completely. Play those chords on the piano or a guitar & come back & say the same thing.I know what it's not. But, after playing them, and playing them properly, I like the song even more than before, and it's long been a favorite. The circles the progression goes in are hypnotic and magical. But I've been finding that playing them provides a context that I never even got just from listening. It's a composition that there just weren't too many in the genre capable of, not that that's necessarily a great accomplishment, but it ain't a hill of beans, neither.

[BradH]

It's a composition that there just weren't too many in the genre capable of, not that that's necessarily a great accomplishment, but it ain't a hill of beans, neither.

Granted. But Joe Jackson was swimming the same "rock is dead" waters and made it interesting and innovative. I think my problem with The Style Council may be the execution of the songs. Weller was too uptight about making a manifesto and chose a posture of dry style over substance; (Check the name: The Style Council.) "The Paris Match" plays into this because it's the most radical departure in his artistic jail break from The Jam. It may very well be structurally sound although I think the vocal melody line is dodgy in a couple of spots and the vocal performance on the recording is unconvincing. And that's the thing, nothing about The Style Council ever sounded legit to me. It was like a bunch of British white guys who picked the wrong style or something. And you couldn't help but compare it to The Jam because Weller never shut up that year about how he had broadened his horizons, etc. Maybe it worked better for Joe Jackson because he didn't have that Beatlesque background he needed to thumb his nose at in order to prove his artistic "integrity". Who knows. I thought maybe The Style Council would evolve into something interesting but Weller kept recycling it over and over again and talking about how brilliant that guy was from Dexy's Midnight Runners. I guess it p!sses me off as a bass player and ex-drummer because people put so much emphasis on songwriters without realizing that the players make a huge difference. Weller's whole attitude about The Jam has been arrogant and condescending yet he's never come close to what he did with Foxton & Buckler. There are two reasons for that and I just named them. It's the old "Ringo sucks" argument and it just doesn't wash. Meanwhile, Weller has been milking the "genius" aura ever since.

Having spewed all that, I'd be curious to hear "The Paris Match" in the hands of Peyroux or someone similar.

[MindGoneHaywire]

After Night & Day I think there was a big dropoff there. I mean, there's a tune here or there, but I thought Mike's Murder afforded him the opportunity to do some interesting things, and it's mostly MOR retread, not what I was expecting at all.

It's not like I'm a huge Style Council fan, mind you. Like I said, the 12"s---and I've heard all of them, B-sides too--are spotty, as is Bleu Cafe. But there are a couple of good singles (the title track & You're The Best Thing), and a couple of outstanding curios (the instrumental Bleu Cafe & Paris-Match). Not sure who thought the rap song was necessary, and the big band swing song is half-baked at best. I'm with you on the players, but I think that's one of the best things Tracey Thorn has ever done, and torch in the hands of people like these has never been done better in my experience. There are moments on the Trinity Sessions where it sounds like they're going for something along these lines without chucking the c&w ethic out the window.

You know you don't have to flog the ability of the players, sort of argument at me. Considering every other band, ever, has gotten back together, it's a mystery why they haven't, but, although Weller has certainly been successful, I'm not sure who thinks of him as a genius for, oh, 25 years now. Do you really think he has that reputation? I don't. More like, old, reliable, above-average pop star. I would hope that someone like Robyn Hitchcock would be considered more of a genius than Weller, and that's not to denigrate his solo work, which in truth I can't listen to all that much of before starting to wonder why he didn't at least try a little harder at the well he drew from so well for so long.

It's not like Internationalists is some kind of gem, although, to be honest, it's more consistent than the first one. Still, who cares? Seeing what I saw was fun. Foxton was more animated than I would've expected, they had the look down, the only thing that surprised me a bit was that he was playing a Fender, and the Weller stand-in spent a lot of time with what looked like a Univox, you know, one of those generic humbucker-type, specifically non-Fender guitars. No complaints from here, it looked & sounded great, it was just a bit odd to see far less Rickenbacker than I would've expected (and the Rick guitar the guy did use had a black headstock, minimizing the visual effect to an extent). I don't want to get hung up on gear, but they WERE a Rickenbacker band, specifically, so...

As one might expect, they rocked.

[BradH]

Foxton was more animated than I would've expected, they had the look down, the only thing that surprised me a bit was that he was playing a Fender...

(spews coffee across the room) WHAT??!!

I mean...WHAT??!!


...although Weller has certainly been successful, I'm not sure who thinks of him as a genius for, oh, 25 years now. Do you really think he has that reputation? I don't.

He does in England. Stanley Road was taken very seriously. Keep in mind, that's the country that toyed with the idea that Noel Gallagher might be the greatest living songwriter. Weller and The Jam was always a British phenomenon anyway. Years after I bought Sound Affects in 1980 I read sowmewhere that the initial sales in the U.S. was only 10k copies.

Yeah, I'd pick Hitchcock's solo work over Weller's any day of the week, hands down. But, for whatever reason, Hitchcock wasn't as influential on the British music scene. Actually, his most famous progeny is early R.E.M., speaking of Rickenbackers.

[MindGoneHaywire]

This is a shaky crowd tape, but you can pretty clearly see that Foxton's got a Precision, & the Weller guy has a guitar that has the shape of a Rick, I can't really tell, but it looks a lot like the single-cutaway he played some of the time as far as color & the close-but-not-exact resemblance to a Les Paul.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QF434UwI2kE

[BradH]

This is a shaky crowd tape, but you can pretty clearly see that Foxton's got a Precision, & the Weller guy has a guitar that has the shape of a Rick, I can't really tell, but it looks a lot like the single-cutaway he played some of the time as far as color & the close-but-not-exact resemblance to a Les Paul.

Ah, they've got two guys to replace Weller! I guess that makes a statement itself. I can't tell what the black guitar is. The guy on the SG looks like Cornwell. Really, with the cam and the age of these guys it could be anybody! Rick Buckler doesn't have hair. I don't think that means I'm older, I just think it means we're all in the future now.

But Weller was known to hit the Gibson SG....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xy3Qpi_XfDA&NR=1